Well, on Wednesday, as UBS held this year’s annual meeting, Knight Vinke Vice Chairman David Trenchard had a different message. “Our positions have come closer together” since the investor’s public prodding in 2013, Mr. Trenchard said. Knight Vinke has had numerous meetings with UBS management.

In particular he’s “pleased” with UBS’s efforts to sell off expensive, risky and unattractive positions previously scuttled by the investment bank but still lingering within the parent company, he said.

Still, Mr. Trenchard said Knight Vinke wants to see a further reduction in the trading business at UBS’s investment bank, relative to the unit’s advisory business. Those trading assets on the unit’s books “still present substantial financial and reputational risk,” he said.

A UBS spokesman declined to comment.

UBS has made efforts in recent years to reduce its presence in relatively high-risk investment banking businesses such as debt trading, and has kept risk-weighted assets on the unit’s balance sheet below a self-imposed cap.

UBS’s investment bank had 5% fewer employees in the quarter than in the period last year, and risk-weighted assets on its balance sheet were down 9%. More importantly, as far as Knight Vinke and others are concerned, UBS said it will speed up efforts to run down unwanted assets previously shed from the investment bank that are designated to be sold at a loss.

Those assets, overseen by a team at UBS within its corporate center unit, totaled 60.1 billion francs ($68.5 billion) in the first quarter. UBS had previously said it intended that amount to hit 55 billion francs by the end of next year, but on Tuesday it said it’s now lowering that target to 40 billion francs.

Mr. Trenchard also noted that structural change detailed by UBS alongside its earnings report already goes some of the way toward preparing the lender to distance itself from the investment bank in a crisis.

UBS said it’s progressing with plans to ring fence its Swiss businesses of wealth management and retail banking from international operations, such as investment banking.

“That brings UBS closer to being able to uncover the true value of the group,” Mr. Trenchard said.